NORTH MANCHESTER — About 24 hours after a tough overtime loss to Pioneer, the Manchester Sr. High School boys’ basketball team had a Class 4A team in DeKalb pay a visit.
The Barons themselves were coming off of a loss the previous night to Central Noble, so both teams could use a boost.
Manchester got out to an early lead and never looked back, as the host Squires ended their skid with a 51-41 win over DeKalb.
“I think that it was a total team effort. It took all of our guys playing well,” said Manchester boys head basketball coach Mark Underwood. “I was especially pleased with Kreeden Krull and Max Carter.
Carter, a junior, had a game-high 14 points and 11 rebounds. Krull, a senior, finished with 10 points and had a team-high 18 rebounds.
For the visiting Barons (4-5 overall), sophomore Connor Penrod led the charge with 11 points, and fellow classmate Brantley Hickman chipped with eight points of his own.
The Squires improve to 4-6 overall. However, a combined 24 points have decided five of those losses. Underwood knows that his team is a lot better than the record shows.
“Our record is so deceiving,” said Under-wood. “We have lost three games—one in double overtime and two in overtime. We could be 7-3 so easy, but I have challenged the guys not to listen to the noise—just focus on keep getting better.”
In Underwood’s four years so far at the reins, the win over DeKalb was his first over a class 4A team.
“It’s a really good feather in our cap, and we are just going to keep working on getting better and try see where this team is going to be at the end of the year,” the coach said.
In the junior varsity game, Maddox Zolman had 10 points with Ridge Fierstos, Luke Ramer and Brayden Jones adding four points each for Manchester in its 42-28 loss to DeKalb. The Squires were outscored 17-7 in the fourth quarter.
Underwood and his Squires will stay home and return to conference Friday night as they host North Miami for an approximate 7:45 p.m. tipoff.
Manchester’s first TRC matchup of the season ended in a close double overtime loss to Southwood, and Under-wood looks to make sure his team does not fall to 0-2.
“The conference is huge, but we want to make sure we take care of business (tonight) and then try to keep that conference record evened up,” said Underwood. “We are going to hit it hard in practice and see what we can do next week.”
